One Last Summer
by ebi pers
Summary: One last summer together. A collection of vignettes set during the interlude between the gang's senior year and the beginning of college. Established Lucaya. T for mild language and occasional bouts of teenage recklessness.
1. Kings

**A/N: GMW has sort of taken over my life at this point and I'm totally okay with it. So I'm just rolling with the muse. As I was writing "The Second Act" I realized there are other stories I want to tell. So here's one of them: a collection of vignettes and short stories that will be updated as I write them. This collection follows Riley, Maya, Lucas, Farkle, and Zay in the summer between the end of senior year and the beginning of college. Featuring established Lucaya, friendship, and (mis)adventure. I hope you'll enjoy these and let me know what you think!**

It was weird. This whole thing was weird. A few short hours ago, they'd been high schoolers. _Kids_. And then Farkle addressed the class as valedictorian, they shook hands with the principal and received a diploma, shifted their tassels from one side of their caps to the other and now they were graduates. Adults. With two-and-a-half months before they found themselves scattered across the country, pursuing the next stage of their lives. It was their one last summer. One last summer before everything changed. One last summer before jobs and coursework and new friends and internships and adult life. One last summer together because none of them realistically knew where they'd be this time next year.

Mr. Rahmani had offered to have Amit cover her shift. "It's a big day. You shouldn't be working on your graduation day," he told her. But Maya explained she needed the money, that there would be plenty of time left in the night when she left the convenience store at nine. So Mr. Rahmani shrugged and let her work her usual shift, but he had left her an envelope inside the register, FOR MAYA scrawled in his loopy script. It was a card, $20 tucked inside with a note. "Consider it your graduation bonus. Congratulations on your achievement." She smiled to herself. Amit showed up at nine on the dot and by 9:10, Maya had cashed out her register, deposited the envelope of money in the safe in Mr. Rahmani's office, clocked out, and gone to the bathroom to ditch her jeans for the red sleeveless dress Lucas liked.

Her phone buzzed. A text from Ranger Rick himself.

"You coming to Zay's party?"

"Miss me already, Huckleberry?"

"Always. You're the life of the party."

She grinned to herself as she slipped her phone into her bag and exited the store, walking the two blocks to where she'd parked.

She had taken the car today. The beat-up red Jetta she'd been saving up for since sophomore year. It cost $900, purchased from a twenty-something stoner in Staten Island who was the car's fourth owner. She didn't care that it was crappy. She didn't care that the car had mysterious stains on the front passenger seat or that it carried the faint odor of old cigarettes. She didn't care that the sheet metal on the hood was faded to almost-pink, that the odometer was pushing two-hundred thousand miles. She didn't care that it wasn't as big or as shiny as the blue RAV-4 Lucas received as a hand-me-down when his dad decided to trade up to a Lexus, or that it didn't have leather and seat warmers and a three-pointed star badge like Farkle's graduation present. A car meant freedom. Freedom to leave the city. To go where subways and bus lines didn't. A car meant escape, even if escape was just a trip over the George Washington Bridge and into Jersey. She had taken the car today because it would be easier than taking the subway from Murray Hill to Zay's place in the East Village, then taking the subway again to get home. The drive felt longer than ten minutes. The radio conked out the day after she bought the car and driving was so much more tedious in silence.

Zay's party promised to be the biggest senior party of the year. Every member of the graduating class was invited. Kids postponed their own parties to come. Rooftop, killer views of the East Village, music, and plenty of beer and wine coolers 'borrowed' from his parents' stash. And with seven floors between his parents and them, they were pretty much guaranteed to remain undisturbed. Maya left the car curbside four blocks from Zay's apartment building and walked the rest of the way. She could hear the music blaring as she made it to the fire escape and hoisted herself onto the first step, clambering to the top of the building.

Riley stood to one side of the roof, searching the city skyline and the windows of the buildings directly across from her. Taxis piled up in the streets, crawling and weaving around one another, jockeying for position, sounding their horns angrily. And yet there was some kind of chaotic order to the city that she'd gotten used to. Rochester wouldn't be like this. Rochester would be quiet. She sighed, turning around to glimpse the other partygoers. This wasn't her scene. She knew that. But Zay asked her to come, and her friends were going to be here. The music was too loud and the chips had run out a half hour ago. It was only 9:30 and some of her classmates were already too tipsy to stand up straight. At least they had the good sense to keep away from the edges of the roof, she thought to herself. Charlie had offered her a beer, which she had politely declined. She spotted Lucas hanging out with Farkle and some kids from the basketball team. He had a beer in his hand, which was unusual considering the fact that he rarely drank at parties. And Farkle, who hadn't let a drop of alcohol touch his lips throughout their entire high school career, had decided tonight was his night and downed an impressive quantity of alcohol, which prompted him to act as if he were on a sugar rush. Riley had to smile to herself just a little.

"What're you doing all by your lonesome?" Zay approached, coming to rest beside her. He stared in the same direction as her, trying to pick out what captivated her so deeply.

"Just…waiting for Maya," she answered.

"You do know there's other people here, right?" he questioned. "People we've known for at least four years of our lives?"

"I know," Riley shrugged, sweeping her dark locks to one side. "I just wish Maya was here, that's all."

"You know, you didn't have to come," Zay told her. He didn't sound hurt. In fact, maybe he'd been expecting her to be like this. "You look miserable. And that's not allowed. This is a Zay Babineaux party. Everybody has fun at a Zay Babineaux party!"

She smiled in response. "I am having fun," she insisted half-heartedly.

"You'll just have more fun when Maya gets here," he filled in the rest. She smiled again. "Look, I'm not gonna force you to mingle," Zay began to back away. "All I'm saying is, Farkle's getting pretty hyped up over there. Never seen the little guy so energetic. Lucas could probably use some help wrangling him." He sauntered off to entertain the rest of his guests, leaving Riley alone once more. She didn't hear Maya sneak up on her.

"Hey, Pumpkin!" the blonde greeted. Riley started and wheeled around to face her best friend.

"Peaches, you made it!"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world. Were you standing around waiting for me the whole time?"

"Party can't start without you," the brunette answered.

Maya smirked cockily. "Huckleberry said the same thing. You might be onto something."

"Easy now," Riley urged with a grin. "I'm your best friend, he's your boyfriend. We might be a _little_ biased."

"Still counts," Maya insisted, grabbing the other girl's wrist and pulling her toward the center of the rooftop, where Zay had placed the two 'borrowed' couches and the 'borrowed' table from the building lobby (after paying off the doorman to keep his mouth shut). She dropped down onto the couch beside Lucas, who was tending to Farkle who had, by now, fallen into a half-asleep state. The blond boy didn't seem to notice her presence until she draped a playful arm around his shoulders. He froze, then turned to face her with a grin.

" 'Bout time you showed up," he greeted.

"Easy, Cowboy, I only came for Riley," Maya teased, pecking his cheek. "You're just a bonus."

Riley perched on the arm of the couch and leaned against the blonde. "I was lonely without you."

"Me, too," Lucas imitated, leaning against Maya's other shoulder.

The girl in the middle let out a good-natured sigh and put a hand on each head. "You two are so needy. Why can't you be like Farkle? Nice, quiet…what's wrong with him?"

"He had a little too much," Lucas answered.

"Did not," the genius mumbled, shifting on the couch.

"Whatever you say, buddy," the other boy soothed.

"Maya!" Zay interrupted, wedging himself between Lucas and the aforementioned girl. "Glad you could make it."

"Are you kidding?" Maya gave him a one-armed hug. "Rooftop party? You couldn't have kept me away."

"Always happy to have you. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna make a speech," Zay announced, seizing the remote for the speakers. The music faded. "Ladies and Gentlemen," he stepped onto the table and faced his audience. "I have something to tell you. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Soon, we'll be shipping out to cities all across the country. I'll be at Navy Academy. My pal Lucas here is gonna be killing it right here in this city at Hunter. Farkle's gonna be off getting some genius grant at some school the rest of us are too dumb to even spell," he paused for the laughter to die down. "Riley, you're gonna be hitting the books in Rochester. And Maya, you'll be painting the town at Cal Arts. Sarah, those business classes at Penn State won't know what hit 'em. Brenda, try not to blow up any labs at Stanford. Darby, you're gonna do great things in journalism at Rutgers. Dave, best of luck at the Culinary Institute of America. And Yogi, congrats on getting that basketball scholarship to Villanova. Who'd've thought? My point is, some of us probably aren't gonna see each other for a while. Maybe not ever again. But we're all friends and we're all here. Tomorrow will worry about itself. Tomorrow we'll be freshmen. Tonight," he raised his beer can and waited for the others to follow suit, "we are kings!"

The partygoers cheered as Zay raised the stereo's volume back to full-blast. Riley glanced at Maya and broke into a broad grin. Tonight, they would be kings.

 **A/N: So there's our intro. Kind of short, yes, but this is setting up every subsequent chapter. Basically, every other chapter will be various moments throughout the kids' summer. I hope you like it so far. I'll be updating as I go!**


	2. Hold Up

**A/N: Next vignette! I would just like to mention that these vignettes don't have any connection to any of my other stories. I'm so happy you all are enjoying so far, though. Thank you for all the support!**

* * *

"What are you up to?"

Maya picked her phone up off the counter and stared at the text from Lucas on the lock screen. She unlocked the device and tapped out a response.

"Working. You know, that thing you're supposed to be doing too?"

"I'm on break," came his defense.

"Wouldn't know what that feels like, Ranger Rick."

The little bell tinkled above the doorframe as a customer entered the store. Maya let the phone drop beside the cash register. "Hi, how are you?" she greeted the slightly overweight woman perusing the bags of Wise potato chips facing the door.

"Good," she answered blandly, reaching for a cellophane bag of sour cream and onion. Maya wrinkled her nose and picked up her phone once more.

"Am I walking you home tonight?"

Lucas always walked her home. His shift ended at ten and he could get to her in about twenty minutes, sometimes less if he drove to work and traffic was light. She was usually fine with killing an hour and a half at the store. Amit was pretty cool to talk to, there were plenty of magazines to read, and sometimes Mr. Rahmani paid her to do stocking and inventory while she waited. And if she didn't feel like hanging around, there was a McDonald's down the street in one direction and a Starbucks up the street in the other where she could go and wait. She knew that he worried about her. Murray Hill wasn't a bad place, but the crime rate—especially robbery—was significantly higher here than in Nolita where he worked or in the neighborhoods around Greenwich Village where they lived. And even Mr. Rahmani was spooked after the appliance store two blocks over was ransacked in the middle of the night. So she couldn't blame Lucas for worrying about her, which was the only reason she allowed him to accompany her like some helpless damsel.

But still. He'd volunteered to work a double today after one of the other servers was hit by a taxi while in the crosswalk. Between waiting tables, busing those same tables, working the register, and taking called-in orders, he must have been exhausted. Not to mention he probably smelled like cheese and dough and was longing for a shower. He always joked that by the end of the summer, he would never want to look at a pizza again.

"No. I'll be fine." She texted in response and glanced at the clock. 8:04. The sun had just set and if she was tired, there was no way he wasn't. No point in making him go twenty minutes out of his way tonight. She'd be alright for one evening. There were plenty of people out anyway.

"You sure?"

"Huckleberry, you just worked a double. Go home and sleep for 12 hours. I'll be ok."

"Fine," Lucas relented. "Text me when you get home?"

"If I remember," Maya replied playfully. His break had to be up because that concluded their texting conversation.

The bell tinkled again as a younger man in a baseball cap entered the store and began rifling through the magazines on the rack. Maya watched as he slowly made his way down the aisle before vanishing behind several pallets of soda cans. The woman with the potato chips approached the register and laid out her purchases. Chips. A bottle of Dr. Pepper. Chapstick. Maya rang up each item.

"Can I get a Quick Pick Mega Millions?" she asked, rooting around in her handbag for her wallet.

Maya generated the ticket and slid it across the counter to the customer. "Your total is $8.60."

The woman handed her a ten. Maya popped the register drawer open and counted out $1.40 in change, tearing the receipt off the printer as she shut the cash drawer. She handed the entire bundle to the woman. "Have a nice night."

The woman took her change, receipt, and the plastic bag with her purchases and walked out the door. Maya reached for her phone again when she felt the presence of the other man interrupting her. She looked up and found herself staring straight into the barrel of a Glock.

At first, she was sure she was seeing things. But when the barrel and the man didn't disappear after she blinked, her head began reeling.

"Easy there, sweetie. I'm not here to hurt you. So don't make me do something I don't want to do. Just empty your register into one of those shopping bags and I'll get going," he said softly.

Maya felt her chest constricting, threatening to squeeze every last bit of air from her lungs. A holdup hadn't been included in her job training and all she could think was not to panic, not to make any sudden moves lest he pull the trigger and lodge a bullet straight between her eyes. She wished Mr. Rahmani had installed that panic button he'd been talking about.

"Okay," she said slowly, appeasingly. Her voice sounded distant, not entirely her own. Like someone else was speaking through her. She felt her arms move but they, too, seemed foreign to her as she opened the drawer and slowly drew out the stacks of money within, lowering them into one of the plastic shopping bags. The paper had no weight and her arms felt like they were moving through water. She started each shift with $250 even, split among twenties, tens, fives, ones, and change. Plus whatever she'd taken in today. Her head and heart pounded wildly as she reached over the counter and held out the shopping bag like a desperate offering.

"Good girl," the man seized the bag and darted toward the door, gun aimed steadily at her. He shoved the door open and slipped out, bell chiming cheerfully as it swung manically from side to side above the doorframe.

The store was still. Maya let out a tense breath. Her limbs felt like rubber and she had to lean against the counter by the open register just to keep herself upright. The image of the gun was still seared into her brain, a lethal black barrel aimed straight at her forehead. A single flash of bright light and that would be it. Nobody outside seemed to notice. Taxis crawled past and people strode by without so much as a glance at the distressed blonde. Slowly, as if the robber might still be lurking, Maya picked up her cell phone and dialed the three-digit number she'd been taught from age three. She had never called 9-1-1 before.

"9-1-1, what's your emergency?" The dispatcher spoke shortly, abruptly.

Maya swallowed and struggled to find her voice.

"Hello?" the woman on the other end asked.

"There was just a hold-up," Maya said quietly.

"I'm sorry?"

"I'm at the East 39th Convenience Store in Murray Hill. Someone just robbed us."

"East 39th Convenience Store. I'm sending officers now. Is the person still there?"

"No," Maya answered breathlessly. "H-he ran out. He had a gun."

"Okay, ma'am. Officers are on the way now. They'll be right there. Do you work there?"

"I'm the cashier," she replied.

"And your name?"

"Maya Hart."

"Okay, Maya, they're on their way. Just hang in there."

She hung up the phone and started shaking, almost to the point of convulsing. Should she call Mr. Rahmani? Riley? Lucas? Her mother? A white-and-blue NYPD Impala, lights winking red and white, pulled up in the bike lane a few minutes later.

The responding officer was a short, squat, bulky man. Built like a refrigerator with a stubbly face. His badge read LOCOSTA. He was accompanied by a taller, slender woman who followed closely at his heels, walking stiffly and erectly. Her badge identified her as CHEN. The pair made their way through the door and approached Maya immediately.

"You the one that called?" LOCOSTA asked.

The blonde nodded mutely.

"Officer Chen's going to take down your statement," he said. "You the only one working?"

"Yes," Maya replied softly.

"You got a security camera?"

The teenager swallowed thickly. "Yeah. The tapes are in Mr. Rahmani's office. It's locked."

"He got a phone number I could reach him at?"

Maya printed off a piece of receipt paper and scrawled Mr. Rahmani's cell phone number in a shaky hand. LOCOSTA took the slip of paper and stepped off to the side to make the call.

"I'm Officer Deb Chen, seventeenth precinct," CHEN told Maya, pulling a notebook from her pocket. Her voice was soft and rich, far less coarse than her partner's. "I just need to take a statement from you so we can file a report. What's your full name?"

"Maya Penelope Hart."

"Okay, Maya, now tell me what happened as clearly as you can remember."

The teen drew in a shaky breath and tried to force the tremor from her voice. "I was working my shift. It was kind of quiet today. A guy came in. He was wearing a baseball cap pulled down over his face," she shut her eyes and tried to recall every detail of the robber's face. "There was another lady in the store so he waited till she left and then came up to me. He put the gun right in my face. It was pointed right here," she indicated the point in the dead center of her forehead. "And he told me to empty my register into a shopping bag or he would shoot me."

Officer Chen scribbled furiously in her notebook and paused when Maya did. "Then what happened?"

"I was scared!" the teen struggled to maintain her composure. "So I did what he told me to do. I put the money in the bag and he ran out of the store. That's when I called 9-1-1."

"Do you remember anything more? How much money he took? What he looked like?"

Eighteen years of being an artist had trained Maya to notice the little details-every aspect of a person's face so that she could draw it from memory. It was a habit. And up until now she'd found it equal parts useful and annoying. But she was drawing a blank. All she could see was that _gun_ pointed right at her.

"H-he was wearing a baseball cap," she tried to recall more. "Brownish hair. Stubble."

"How old?" Officer Chen prodded gently.

"Maybe in his twenties?"

"Maya, would it be okay if you came down to the precinct with us? We'd like to get you to talk to a sketch artist so we can get all this down."

The blonde hesitated before agreeing. Glancing outside the window, she spotted Mr. Rahmani's immaculate green Volvo draw up behind a second police cruiser that had just arrived on-scene.

The man jumped out of the driver's seat and ran into the store, trailed closely by two additional NYPD officers. "I'm the owner," he announced breathlessly. "Please, is everything alright?"

"We need to access your security footage. Could you unlock your office for us?" Officer Locosta requested.

Mr. Rahmani fished around in the pocket of his khakis and pulled out a heavy key ring crowded with brass keys, tagged with different colored circular labels. He selected the orange one and handed it to the officer. He approached Maya at the counter, gently laying a hand on her shoulder but removing it just as quickly when he detected her flinch. Maya always thought that in another life, Mr. Rahmani might have made a good therapist. "Please, are you okay, Maya?" he asked, his voice reedy and softly accented.

"I'm fine, Mr. Rahmani," the blonde answered.

"No, no. Are you really alright? Please, I hurried over right away when the police called me. Did the person hurt you? He did not hurt you, did he?"

"He didn't hurt me," Maya tried to soothe the shopkeeper, "I'm just a little shaken up."

Mr. Rahmani pinched the bridge of his nose. "This is my fault. I should have installed the panic alarm. I should have hired another person to work this shift with you."

"Mr. Rahmani, it's not your fault," she insisted. "You had no idea this was going to happen."

"We really need to get you down to the precinct," Officer Chen interrupted. "Sir, the other officers will take your statement and collect the CCTV footage."

"Yes, yes," Mr. Rahmani assented, pulling his well-worn handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbing at his heavy brow. "Maya, have the next few days off. Please. You need time to make sure you are alright. I will have my son work with you during these shifts from now on. He has a black belt."

"That's really not necessary—"

"Please," he dabbed at his brow again, "it is good to have numbers. There is strength in numbers. Please." He folded the handkerchief in quarters and tucked it back into his breast pocket, then gestured vaguely toward the door. "You should go now and tell the police all you can remember. I am glad you were not hurt."

Maya followed Officers Locosta and Chen to the police car. Locosta held the rear door for her and she climbed into the back. It was funny. People always told her she was liable to end up in the back of a police car at some point, but she never imagined it would be as a victim. It was a short ride to the 17th Precinct and once inside, the officers hustled her to a room that resembled all the ones she'd seen on true crime drama shows. Blank, white walls. Single faux-wood table in the center of the room with little handles to chain handcuffs to. Three chairs—two on one side, one on the other. She sat in the one by itself and felt incredibly guilty, even though she hadn't done anything wrong.

"Can we get you some water or something?" Officer Chen asked.

Maya shook her head. "If it's okay with you, I just want to get this over with already so I can go home."

Chen nodded her head. "Alright, well let's find you a sketch artist so we can get you in and out."

The sketch artist was a wiry man, save for the beer gut that his ill-fitting flannel shirt did little to hide. Outside of this setting, if he had told Maya he did police work, she would have laughed him off. But here he was, sitting in front of her with his wire-frame glasses and his unkempt goatee, sketchpad resting firmly in his paunch. "Tell me about his face. What kind of face did he have?" the guy asked.

Maya paused, reached into her memory for the image of her attacker. "Rectangular. He had a squared-off jaw. Stubble. Brownish."

"Hold on, hold on," the man murmured, squinting over the rim of his glasses at the sketchpad. Maya fidgeted in her seat, wringing her hands until he put his pencil down and asked his next question. "What kind of eyes? And what color?"

"Blue. But like a dark blue. Kind of gray."

"Shape?" he mumbled.

"Round?" she offered.

They continued with this exercise, the sketch artist chewing at his lip and frowning at the page in front of him until he finally switched the drawing around to face her. "Close?"

Maya frowned. "Not at all," she muttered with frustration. The face was off. Crooked. His eyes were too big, his nostrils too flared, his mouth too wide. It insulted her. As an artist and a victim. "May I?" she gestured for the pad. The sketch artist seemed at a loss for what to do and handed it over without questioning her. Maya picked up the pencil, turned to a fresh page, and began making careful strokes, using the nub of the eraser to undo countless stray lines and inaccuracies. When she was finished, she turned the sketchpad around and revealed a likeness much closer to that of the robber. "This is the guy you're looking for."

Officer Chen seemed impressed. "You ever thought about doing police sketches for a living? Because that's not bad. Looks like a Caucasian male, mid-twenties. How tall would you say? And how heavy?" she was jotting notes in her notebook.

Maya shrugged. "Maybe about six feet if I had to guess. Probably one-seventy or one-eighty."

The policewoman wrote what Maya said and then flipped her notebook shut. "Alright. Well we have your contact info. We're going to start investigating leads and turning up witnesses right away. We'll keep you and your boss updated if we find anything, so keep on top of your phone calls and emails. We might need you to identify someone down the line. A full police report about the incident will be available for pick-up here in four or five days."

"Can I go?" Maya asked tiredly, already rising from the uncomfortably hard plastic chair.

Officer Chen nodded and the teenager fled the station immediately, walking briskly toward the nearest subway station to catch the next 7 train. It was well past midnight at this point and she was surprised her mother hadn't called yet. She must have been working late again, which made things a lot easier. Maya had just transferred lines to the A train that would take her home when she felt a vibration in her pocket.

She drew her phone from her pocket and glanced at the screen. _Lucas_.

"You okay? You forgot to text me."

Maya paused and weighed her options, then finally replied, "Everything's fine. Sorry I forgot. Good night."

* * *

 **A/N: Hope you enjoyed this—a little more traumatic and dramatic than I usually do but I enjoyed doing it and I hope you liked reading it. (There will be repercussions for Maya as we go, so that'll be fun to explore). Please leave a review to let me know what you thought. Thanks for reading!**


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